BERN, Switzerland: Switzerland is investigating two Egyptians in connection with money laundering and bribery in connection with the U.N. oil-for-food program in Iraq, according to court documents and U.N. records.
The Swiss Federal Court in Bellinzona did not name those under investigation in a judgment published on its Web site this week, but the details correspond with a U.N. investigation which found that an oil trading firm, Africa Middle East Petroleum Co. Ltd. Inc., also known as AMEP, had paid at least $147,184 in kickbacks to Benon Sevan, the overseer of the program, to secure contracts to buy oil from Saddam Hussein s regime.
According to the Bellinzona court documents, the Swiss Federal Prosecutor s Office opened an inquiry in May last year into suspected money laundering by an unnamedmiddleman, who transferred kickbacks from AMEP to Sevan through a Geneva bank.
Details in the judgment correspond with the U.N. inquiry, headed by former U.S. Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker, which named the middleman as Egyptian Fred Nadler, a friend of Sevan and a former director of AMEP. The Volcker report described AMEP as a Panama-based company with offices in Monaco and Geneva.
In November, the prosecutor s office opened an investigation into a second individual for suspected bribery of foreign officials. The court documents again do not name the individual, but details correspond with Volcker s inquiry, which identified Fakhry Abdelnour, also Egyptian and the head of AMEP.
Abdelnour is a first cousin once removed of former U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, and Nadler is related to Boutros-Ghali by marriage.
The U.N. investigation has said it has gathered enough evidence to prosecute Abdelnour. The investigators said Abdelnour admitted to them that he had paid an illegal surcharge, but he has since rejected the allegations.
Neither Abdelnour nor Nadler are listed in the Swiss telephone directory, and could not be reached for comment.
Sevan is accused by the U.N. probe of steering lucrative Iraqi oil contracts to AMEP and accepting the kickbacks.
Sevan is being investigated by the Manhattan District Attorney s office but has returned to his native Cyprus, which has no extradition treaty with the United States.
Swiss prosecutors have launched five investigations into suspected corruption in connection with the oil-for-food program. But according to Swiss traditions of confidentiality, they have not disclosed the identities of the individuals or companies involved.
About 40 Swiss companies were named in the final report of the U.N. probe, including engineering firm ABB and pharmaceutical giants Novartis and Roche, as well as commodity traders Glencore, Vitol and Marc Rich Group.
Authorities already have fined a Geneva-based oil-trading company 50,000 Swiss francs (about $38,000) for paying kickbacks under the oil-for-food program, but have declined to name the firm.
The oil-for-food program was established in 1996 to help ordinary Iraqis suffering under U.N. sanctions imposed after Saddam s 1990 invasion of Kuwait. It allowed Iraq to sell oil, provided most of the proceeds were used to buy humanitarian goods, and has since become the target of several corruption investigations. AP
